Stop forcing students to buy unneccesary books

Mike Tracy has been teaching at the Arts Institute of California-Orange County for 11 years. I took two classes with him and can say, firsthand, what a passionate and engaged teacher he is. He puts his students first in everything he does -- something that the Arts Institute also claims to do.

That’s why I was angry when I heard that Professor Tracy was fired. And I was even more angrier about why.

As a student at the Arts Institute, I know how expensive an education can be. Everything from tuition to textbooks means we have to budget and work hard (sometimes even go into debt) to get our degrees. Professor Tracy understood this and made sure none of his students bought textbooks that he thought were unnecessary for his classes. And he was fired for it.

The Arts Institute actually fired a teacher -- a wonderful teacher at that -- for not requiring students to buy an e-textbook for one of his classes where its “inclusion seems arbitrary, inappropriate and completely motivated by profit.” AI claims that this is a policy that benefits students and that teachers cannot decide which textbooks are appropriate for their own classes.

I think it’s a clear case of profit-motivated policy that should be changed to benefit both students and faculty.

That’s why I am asking the Arts Institute to amend their textbook policy so that teachers can choose which textbooks are and aren’t necessary for classes. There are hundreds of other teachers out there who, like Mike Tracy, want only the best for their students. They should have the freedom to choose the books for the classrooms and to look out for the best interests of those they are teaching.